Abstract

This study empirically explores the phenomena of corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate restructuring and their relationships with firm's performance in the context of economic reform in China from three main perspectives: the study begins with investigating how Chinese managers perceive CSR, to what extent, managers' attitudes influence their behaviours in restructuring, whether those who are more in faviour of CSR may engage in more socially responsible restructuring; then the study examines the relationship between socially responsible restructuring and firm's financial performance, and the study also analyzes a case study of enterprise restructuring in China defence industy.

The three perpectives covered by the study are logically interrelated. It is assumed that by understanding an individual's attitudes toward something, we can predict the individual's overall pattern of response to the object, therefore, an assessment of a manager's attitude toward CSR may provide an indication of the manager's predisposition to respond in a particular way to CSR. Thus, different attitudes toward CSR (in faviour of or against) may result in the different actions (socially responsible or socially irresponsible), and different behaviours may lead to various firm's performance. By analyzing the case study, we can have comprehensive and deep insight into the CSR issues, and have a fuller understanding of the process of socially responsible restructuring in China.

The result of the study provides more evidence for the theories about relationship between CSR and firm's performance. The result suggests that there be a positive relationship between attitude and behaviour with regard to CSR, socially responsible value-oriented managers pay more attention to social issues in restructuring. The result also shows that there is a positive association between CSR and financial performance, more social responsibility leads to better financial performance, and financial performance drives socially responsible performance in restructuring. The result further reveals that after restructuring, firms didn't significantly improve profitability as expected by government and management.

Item Type:

Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
(PhD)

Supervisors:

Suhomlinova, O.Song, L.

Keywords:

Social responsibility of business, Corporate reorganizations, China

Subjects:

H Social sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor

Faculties/Schools:

UK Campuses > Faculty of Social Sciences, Law and Education > Nottingham University Business School